


Thirty Years, A Day

by PutItBriefly



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Discussion of Torture, F/M, Minor Character Death, Wish Realm, discussion of suicide, discussion of trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-01
Updated: 2017-11-01
Packaged: 2019-01-27 18:59:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12588456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PutItBriefly/pseuds/PutItBriefly
Summary: In the Wish Realm, Rumplestiltskin struggles with his personhood, his family, the people he has loved and loathed and how to help Belle now that he has found her alive.





	Thirty Years, A Day

He remembers the moment he was blinked into existence, his very life nothing more than the by-product of a wish more complex than it sounded. 

He knows nothing is real. The bars that bind him are all wrong—the style, the location, the cell itself. He should have been locked deep below Queen Snow’s palace in a cavern carved by dwarves. He knew that cage. He had hidden ways to escape in the recesses of the walls. Something within him—not quite his mind, but something like it—is sure he has been in this cage for thirty years, but obviously, that is not true.

He would not have stayed for thirty years.

Regina is long dead. The Dark Curse was never cast. His son’s soul has come and gone again, this time to death.

There is no reason for him to stay sequestered in this foul dungeon for thirty years. 

He knows he was born mere hours ago, and the same can be said of everyone in this realm. The genie that created it filled his head with knowledge he ought not have, knowledge he knows he shouldn’t have. He knows his son lived a life in the realm he ran from. He knows where magic beans grow.

He remembers Storybrooke.

His knowledge of that world is fading fast. He doesn’t know  _ why _ he knows. Perhaps the genie thought the Dark One should know all; perhaps everyone has two lives in their minds, a set of recollections that grows weaker with every moment and a set of false memories that recount a full life lived in a realm that did not exist hours ago but will soon feel as though it has always been.

He was sane an hour ago.

He hadn’t felt the effects of three decades of solitary confinement as sharply then as he does now. There won’t be much left of him soon. 

The life in Storybrooke he remembers is as fake as the life he leads now. There’s no truth to it, just the genie’s assumptions of what must have happened. He doesn’t care. He shouldn’t have memories of holding Belle in his arms as recently as yesterday. He shouldn’t have memories of her knees squeezing his hips or her nails digging into his shoulder or her moans in his ears. He shouldn’t know she’s kissed him in every way it is possible to be kissed. 

He should not remember these things because this realm did not exist yesterday. He has spent every second of his life locked in this cage.

He should not remember these things because Belle died thirty years ago. He threw her away and she threw herself from a tower. He has not held her since she dropped from a ladder into his arms. He has never been in her bed. They shared precisely one kiss. She had asked for another and he refused to give it. 

He clings to the memory of Belle and Storybrooke because quite frankly, he has nothing better to do. The thought of her is worth cherishing and thirty years spent alone in a dungeon, all his plans come to naught and his son dead anyway, is really not. The Belle in Storybrooke was  _ his wife. _ There is a baby, but he can’t picture it and he doesn’t know its name. Belle in Storybrooke loved him long enough to realize that love alone was never going to  _ be _ enough and she left him. He presumes she took the child with her, but perhaps he can’t remember it clearly because the genie that created this realm doesn’t know. 

Cause and effect is challenging when you aren’t real.

He doesn’t know why the Belle in Storybrooke never threw herself off a tower or why, with every passing moment, he becomes more and more convinced that  _ no, she really did. _

Regina.

Reginareginaregina.

Regina came and told him. Before Queen Snow accepted that ruling a kingdom means putting the needs of the people above your own personal feelings and had her step-mother killed, Regina came and told him the truth. Belle went home. Her father was cruel to her. Her soul was to be cleansed of the filth the Dark One had smeared on it. They tortured her. She killed herself.

No

no no it wasn’t true

Regina scooped her up and took her away.

Regina locked her in a tower, made it so that the only value placed on Belle’s life was how much  _ he _ would suffer in her name.

She lived.

Regina died. Thirty years ago, Regina died. Even if  _ even if  _ Regina had locked her away in this fake realm, Belle would surely die without a jailer. 

This world was born today.

What souls yet lived in Storybrooke, lived.

What souls died in Storybrooke, died.

The conceit of the wish itself required Regina’s death, but anyone else—anyone else should be untouched.

Belle—darling Belle, beautiful Belle—should live.

What reason had a genie to kill her? What reason had anyone to harm dear Belle?

An hour ago, he was sane and this very day, he was born and every moment, this world inches closer to becoming something true and real and if he is to find his Belle alive, he must do so before the world corrects itself and her thirty years alone in a tower have the consequences that thirty years alone in a tower ought to have.

*

Regina lets him out of his cage.

Regina is perfectly clear that  _ she _ is real and  _ he _ is not. She confirms everything he used to know was true but has been steadily coming to doubt. The brevity of his own personhood. The genie. Storybrooke. 

He is unsurprised this is all about Emma because everything was always meant to be all about Emma. She is not the Savior here, but the meek and mild Regina that knows she is real intends to fix everything. 

He feels real.

He thinks he is more real than this Regina. She’s not Regina, she is someone else wearing Regina’s face. She’s not the soft hearted girl he met long ago or a sneering queen but something inbetween that he is sure Regina never was and shouldn’t be. 

Yes. She is certainly the fake one.

He has been here for thirty years.

*

He finds Belle in the same damn palace that he has spent thirty years (or a day? He forgot) imprisoned in. He was in a dank cage in the bottom, she a pristine tower at the top. 

He applauds this genie on his mastery of symbolism. True, the details are rather shoddy, but since they benefit from that, he will overlook it. It’s a loophole.

The genie left Belle more or less the way she was in Storybrooke and the realm has been forced to compensate. Maybe. He feels real. He feels magic in the air that he recognises as the work of Regina, his very own Regina, his student, his failure, another man’s daughter. (He loves her almost as much as he hates her, and he hates her to a not inconsiderable degree. Her death was a tragedy that he both mourned and celebrated, depending on the day.)

At this precise moment, he is leaning hard on hate. The execution of the Evil Queen was a beautiful and just thing he wishes he had been present to witness. His familiarity with Regina’s work means the spell takes but a moment to understand and break. 

Belle has spent every second of her thirty years of solitary confinement conscious. She has not aged (not because this world was created yesterday but because if she is to be a useful pawn, she must be eternally as he remembers her, so young and beautiful.) She has had no need to eat or drink (not because it has been a day; it has been thirty years.) She has not spoken (not because it has been a day; it has been thirty years.)

He finds her chained to a wall. She is shackled by both wrists and both ankles, the chains long enough that she can leave her bed but not go much further. Her cell is a far larger space than she has been permitted to enjoy. It’s yet another torture. She has been denied human contact. She has been denied creature comforts. She has been denied the freedom to move despite all that space that no one is using.

The gown the Queen put her in is easily the most alluring thing he has ever seen Belle wear. Regina’s last line of defence was to have him thinking with his cock before his compassion and she’s succeeded. The bodice covers more than Belle’s dresses usually did, but it’s dark and tight and without any embellishments to distract the eye from the swell of her breasts or the column of her throat. The skirt is long but slit up to her hips. Her legs and feet are bare.

He’s half-hard by the time he remembers how to magic the shackles open and he’s not even sure she fucking  _ recognizes _ him. 

He knows as well as she does that thirty years is a very long time to be alone. And it was only a fraction of his life. It’s over half of hers.

When he lifts her into his arms, she doesn’t react. Maybe thirty years is enough to erase her concept of her own personhood. Maybe it hasn’t, and she just doesn’t believe he came to rescue her. Maybe it’s been so long since anyone has cared about her that she simply doesn’t know how to react to it anymore.

He carries her home and never thinks of the name  _ Storybrooke _ ever again.

*

Any curiosity he might feel about the state of the realm reasserts itself eventually. Once he has Belle home, leaving the Dark Castle is particularly unappealing, so information comes to him by way of messenger bird.

Queen Snow is dead. Prince James is dead. Princess Emma is missing. Sir Henry is the only heir and debate rages over if he is to be crowned king. The boy is a bastard which is enough for many to believe he has no claim to the throne. Others believe the absence of legitimate issue necessitates the crowing of the illegitimate heir. People from both of those camps and others all agree the boy is too young to rule regardless and a Regent must be named. Henry himself cares for nothing but revenge on the Evil Queen.

Revenge is not an altogether bad business, but  _ does _ help if the object of one’s vengeance is occupying the same reality. Regina is gone. Henry’s is a fool’s errand. His mother is gone. Queen Snow and the prince consort are dead.

For Bae’s sake, he ought to throw his support behind the boy that would be king. He doesn’t know the specifics of Bae’s return to the Enchanted Forest—the how or the when or the why—and he doesn’t know how exactly Bae fell in bed with the princess. He doesn’t know if Bae told them who his father was or if Bae knew he was imprisoned. Bae had never visited, but there were any number of reasons for that, from honest ignorance to disgust. Henry had had his father for only a short time.

If Henry has room in his life for his still-living grandfather is a question he is prepared to neither ask nor answer.

He focuses on Belle.

It’s easier, because she is never out of arm’s reach.

It’s also more immediately rewarding. (She is so pretty and soft to the touch and he can almost remember how her lips feel against his.)

Henry will never love him. Belle might yet.

*

He spikes her tea with memory potion and the improvement of her condition both immediate and heartening. It’s a drastic step but she wouldn’t eat. For over half of her life, food had not been an option and she was having considerable trouble with every aspect. He couldn’t tell if she was no longer capable of feeling hunger or if she had just forgotten what it felt like but she never wanted to eat. When he tried to force her to do so, the results were varied and always horrifying. Sometimes it was as bad as choking or vomiting, other times more emotionally taxing as she struggled to use utensils.

After thirty years have been wiped from her brain, she expects three meals a day. 

In her eyes, there is recognition. She knows him, she knows his castle. She doesn’t understand why her voice is scratchy from disuse or her limbs are weaker than they should be or why she vomits if she eats anything richer than toast or why it is so difficult to concentrate on a book. But she knows these are problems and she’s asking questions and stubbornly trying to fix it all, so that’s something.

And when he pulls her close and swears no one will ever hurt her again, it means something.

*

Henry is crowned king.

*

He should not make promises because he cannot keep them.

Within the walls of the castle, Belle is safe from any fool that might wish to harm her. But memory potion alone can’t erase what happened to her. With every meal, her stomach gets stronger. She walks the vitality back into her legs. Her voice is melodious. She trains herself to concentrate. But she has no defense against the nightmares.

What’s worse, she doesn’t understand them. 

Power is a beautiful thing and of all forms of power, the hardest to achieve is power over one’s self. Belle cannot will her nightmares away. She cannot dissect and examine them until their haunting qualities are gone, killed by the dreaded weapon over-thinking.

When she didn’t have a voice, she didn’t wake up screaming. In retrospect, he realizes she must have still woken up terrified, she had simply been lacking the ability to alert him. He comes to her when she cries out and he holds her and shushes her and she tries to tell him about her dreams, but her recollections are so vague and shadowy that it doesn’t help. She lacks the context for chains and empty rooms and being a doll for the gratification of a man who isn’t there.

Someday, he is going to have to tell her everything.

*

Someone tries to assassinate his grandson and while he does not hear about it until after the attempt has been thwarted and the conspirators are arrested, intervening on the boy’s behalf ceases to be a mild consideration and becomes a necessity. He has advised kings before, but only when he did not particularly care about what became of them or their kingdoms. That was always about what the king could do for him in exchange for his aid.

He doesn’t have goals.

If he wished to leave this realm, he could. He has access to magic beans. But he is without a reason to go. There is no Bae to follow. There are no enemies strong enough to threaten him. 

Belle is still a prisoner of herself and he can’t fix that. No matter how many times he snaps his fingers, she remains traumatized. 

Henry is a prisoner of what it means to wear the crown and he can’t take that away. Well, he could. He could start a war and ensure this little kingdom is crushed under the heel of another and see the bastard boy king deposed and left directionless, but he won’t. 

*

He’s a bit insane and he doesn’t know why. Maybe it’s too long a life or the voices in his head or thirty years locked in a cage or everything combined. He knows he was once sane. He knows there are still two people in all the realms that he can love. He knows he has failed them both in different ways and he will probably fail again if he continues to try. 

But there is nothing left to do but try.

  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> The eyeballs of Darthmelyanna and FeliceB looked at this and judged it acceptable.


End file.
